


The Menagerie - Take's Story

by KarieChaos



Series: The Menagerie [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Catboys & Catgirls, Daemons, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, M/M, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:48:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5137007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarieChaos/pseuds/KarieChaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take is a half-ling, but neither daemons nor vampyr will claim him and he's left to make his own way in the world. Along the way he meets humans and creatures alike and only a few know what to do with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Born Like Daemons

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original work. I'm aware the concept might not seem so original. Sorry. But this has been crawling around in my head for years and I'm finally writing it down. I basically created the world from scratch and then wedged in reality. Please enjoy it, and please leave me comments if you liked it!

The Menagerie - Take's Story  
By: Karie Chaos

 

~*~

 

He appeared in the manner of daemons. These early bipeds were strange. They didn’t quite yet resemble humans, but they were upright, they communicated. They were fighting. One was backed into a corner, holding to its body a smooth stone of brilliant pink clarity. He stood straighter; his features were more distinct from those surrounding him. The others were shorter, partially because of their hunched poses, but they were broader, their features flatter. They were closing in on him, the leader’s eyes fixed on the bright stone in the other’s hands. Beyond the circle was another, this one made up of another group, females from their slightly less stumpy appearance. They watched, passive, as their brethren picked up rocks and began pelting the trapped male with them. They threw their crude weaponry with increasing vigour, until he cried out and curled back against the stone that trapped him there. The leader shifted, and picked up a thick branch, jerking it forward to slam into his shoulder. He did it repeatedly, until the other dropped the rock, arm numbed and unable to hold onto his treasure. The leader darted in and snatched it up, moving away with it held up triumphantly, gutturally declaring his victory. The other males followed him, giving responding cries as they marched to the females. The lone figure against the rocks protested, reaching out with his other arm. One of the females hesitated, looking between the taller, less undeveloped male and the leader of the tribe. The leader growled and grabbed her, jerking her away and shoving the stone at her. The other was summarily ignored; the female cradling the smooth stone and following obediently back to the rough dwellings they lived in.

Left alone, the other turned away, slinking off into the trees until the area was empty. The small glade abutted the bottom of the cliffs, and the ground rumbled, the earth building itself up into a heap, edges crumbling and trickling away from the mound as it grew too large, too fast. When it finally split it was with a roar of stone, the cliff itself cracking open with the fissure growing out of the ground. The figure it spat out was dirty, and it clawed its way free, long hair a dull grey as it freed itself from the earth. It lay in the shadows, heaving for breath, until a wind shifted the trees, sending errant shafts of sunlight down, and it screamed, recoiling from the light as its skin scalded, reddening and blistering from the lights touch. The creature scrabbled away, ducking deeper into the shadows, clawing its way into a crevasse in the cliff, its claws digging into the stone as it pulled itself in, despite the uncomfortably tight squeeze. When he was wrapped in the dark again he stared out at the light balefully, as if blaming it for its pain. The eyes were dark now, the pupils wide, with a thin rim of molten gold around them.

When night fell, he emerged, walking slowly, wobbling from tree to tree as he tested his legs. He was already self-aware, and he knew, if there were plants and trees, somewhere, there was a water source for them to feed from. His muscles responded more readily as he moved further from the cliff. With the darkness around him he felt better, but his body was starting to make demands of hunger and thirst, the sensation so fierce that they were almost the same desire. He moved further into the trees, almost dissolving into the darkness the further he went. When he found the water source he was pleased, and he waded into it eagerly, the dirt and dust washing from his skin. He purred to himself, ducking under the water’s surface finally, hands going through his hair, separating the thick strands to release the dirt tangling them. He opened his eyed under the water, and movement above the surface made him tense, before he pushed up towards it, rising swiftly. There were others there, lingering around the water’s edge as he emerged, two groups, separated but not separate, staring at him. He waded back to the edge, and stood in the shallows, the water shifting around his ankles. The groups both stared back at him before converging. One, dark eyes gleaming in the night spoke to him, in a language he understood without knowing how he understood it.

“Your name, what is it.” It was not a question, but a statement, a demand of elders. The other group was fronted by a being with eyes of shifting colour, almost glowing. He considered it, not sure how he knew his name.

“Take.”

The two looked at each other, considering. The one with the bright eyes tilted his head. “It’s a daemon name.”

He looked back and forth between them, hunger growing, while they silently debated his existence. Finally he grew tired of waiting and started past them both, his hunger screaming at him. He was heading towards the tribe’s settlement, when someone caught his arm. He whipped around, hissing and baring fangs that dropped down, a vicious angry warning.

“Those are vampyr fangs.”

The two leaders looked at him, and both frowned, marring the strange perfection of their faces with the furrowed expression. They shook their heads.

“You aren’t one of us. You are nothing. You will get nothing from us, or our kinds. Do yourself a favour. Die.”

The groups left him there, slightly bewildered in the dark before his hunger got the best of him and he turned away. If they didn’t want him, he didn’t need them. He already knew the light was his enemy, he would learn the rest.


	2. His First Real Human

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take learns to live as a half-ling and how to survive. He meets the first human he hasn't wanted to feed from immediately and learns about kindness.

Life for the outcast was rough in the beginning, but he grew accustomed to it. When he encountered others of the daemons or the vampyr, they ignored him. He did not exist in their carefully regulated society because of his dual nature. He had too many traits that were not daemon for the daemons, and yet he had too few traits of the vampyr for their kind. He came to understand that he was a non-entity. Neither race would claim him, but neither would they expend the energy or resources to keep track of him and kill him. He drifted through his early years, learning the hard way that his body was far too sensitive to the light to live in it without a heavy covering, and that his hunger and his thirst could only be assuaged by the blood of others. Animals would not do for long; their blood was thin and unpleasant. Only the bipeds or those from the ranks of daemon and vampyr would satisfy him for long. He moved across the world, watching it develop around him while he remained physically the same. He watched the bipeds evolve, becoming more and more sophisticated until they resembled the two races that so shunned him. He began to move in their circles, slinking into villages and towns, the true cities few and far between as the bipeds warred with one another. At one point he found himself at the edge of a sea of sand, the light burning away the vegetation, leaving only the heat of the sands shifting and blowing. He crossed it with laborious drive, having fashioned himself a heavy cloak that he wore in the deepest of dawn and dusk, digging himself deep into the hot sands during the blaze of day. He reached the other side after long days of this pattern, hungry and scorched, but alive and triumphant with it.

The bipeds were calling themselves humans now and they were carving out their places without help of the races that dwelled among them in secret. Take liked this ‘East’ area, the people were different, more concerned with the beauty of what they made than the purely functional ‘West’ had been. He made his first true home there, building slowly and in hidden places a dwelling of his own. He furnished it through his only skill. Taking.

His name was daemon in nature, he was born from an act of taking from one of the early bipeds, and it made him very good at stealing. He developed a way of sliding into the shadows until he was part of them, merely a shadow himself, slipping along like a wraith. He crept first into human homes and shops, his shadow form slipping past their defences. When he was more skilled, no longer setting animals into frenzy with his presence, he began testing the homes of daemons and vampyr. Stealing from those who refused to acknowledge him gave him a deep thrill. He learned, through spying and trial and error, what was valuable and what would panic them to lose. He hid those things in more places, deeper places that they would be hard-pressed to find, especially with their ideas of ignoring him. If they wanted their treasures back, they would deal with him, exchanging favours owed in exchange for their items, or in exchange for someone else’s belongings that they coveted.

When his position became too precarious on the continent, he moved on, booking passage on a rickety ship leaving from the orient to a series of islands pushing out of the water. He found himself in another Eastern civilization, but this one intrigued him. The language was fluid and musical, and he enjoyed listening to it. He was going to set up a home when he walked into a town being ravaged by flames. The humans were fighting, and in the fighting something, probably a lantern – the East had a fondness for beautifully coloured and shaped paper lanterns – had been knocked over and caught fire to the surroundings. Now the wooden buildings were burning unchecked and he wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved. The night was lit up with the glare of the flames. He couldn’t see or feel anyone like himself in the area, and he was alternately glad of and annoyed by that. 

He was moving to leave, back into the trees, when he heard something. It was faint, but he had sharper hearing than humans did, and better night time eyesight. He groaned and tried telling himself that it wasn’t his business. He wasn’t human, after all, so humans were not his business. But that felt too much like the hypocrisy of the two races that had abandoned him, and he turned back with a sigh. He walked through the town, listening for that sound again, until he heard it, turning towards the faint cry. At first he thought it was a child, and he wondered, with how sensitive these people were towards their offspring, why anyone would abandon a child in this place. But he finally found the source in a building half collapsed already from flame, and still blazing, the heat rolling off it bathing him. He shifted around the building until he found a way in not blocked by the fire, and climbed in. He drew in a smoke-filled breath and called out, still rough in this new language.

“Who is here?”

“I am! I am caught, please, help me!”

The voice returned and it quavered, not only from fear but from age. He followed the sound and found an old woman, tiny and fragile, trapped under a fallen bookcase and pinned by a burning beam from the ceiling. He hesitated. He wouldn’t be able to get her out without showing himself as something other than human. But the fire wouldn’t give him time to find help, if indeed there was any help to be had.

“Please,” She looked up at him with bright, dark eyes full of fright and pleading. “Please help me. I don’t want to die here.”

He stared back, the flames reflecting in his gold eyes before he came forward, digging clawed fingers into the end of the wooden beam that wasn’t on fire yet. He could feel the heat building in the wood, as the fire worked its way into the heart of the wood, pushing for more fuel for its hunger. He heaved upward, prying the beam up with a groan of weakened wood. It was splintering already, the fire chewing its way through it. He shoved it over and let it land with a crash of bright red sparks and flying splinters before he reached for the bookcase, lifting it far enough for the old woman to drag herself out. Her leg was bleeding and the scent triggered his hunger, but he pushed it down. Now was no time to indulge. If he needed to, if she was going to expose him, he would do what had to be done. But now he was doing for her what his own kind would never do for him.

“I carry you?” He held out his arms and she nodded, lifting her own to wrap them surprisingly tight around his shoulders. He lifted her up and hurried to the window he’d climbed through, shifting out of it more carefully than he’d climbed in, since he had the old woman. Outside he hurried into the forest, away from the blaze, following her pointed hand as she led him to a safe place away from the town on fire. He carried her to a group of people from the town, who took her from him with suspicious stares for his pale skin, his long spun silver hair, and his brilliant metallic gold eyes. She spoke to them gently, and they allowed him to follow, but they didn’t speak to him, and he was fine with that. He didn’t know much of their language yet, and so he spoke in broken, halting phrases. They walked through the night, the light of the town burning behind them. The humans seemed to know where they were going, even if Take didn’t. When the sun started to edge over the horizon he hurried to pull his hood up, the heavy black fabric part of the lining to his thick leather coat. He could walk a little longer like that, but eventually he’d have to stop and find a place for the day.

The old woman spoke to the young man carrying her and they all stopped, and began seeking shelter. Eventually some of them constructed a shelter among some rocks, using fallen limbs and leafy branches. The old woman was settled into it first and then she made room for Take, patting the thick pile of leaves covered in extra clothing in invitation. He hesitated and then crawled into the shelter, dragging himself as far into the dark as he could get. Around the front the townsfolk gathered, the women were lying down at the mouth of the shelter and the men settling in sitting up, a few remaining awake to keep watch he assumed. Take let the daylight take him into sleep, drawing as far under his coat as he could to keep any stray beams from burning him.

When the sun sank past the edge of the world, he woke again, surprised to still see the people from town around him. The old woman was awake; her injured leg bound between some sticks stripped of their bark and tied with multicoloured lengths of what looked like silk. She greeted him with a slight bow and signalled one of the young men who came in to fetch her. The humans had been busy during the day, forming a sort of cart out of parts of the forest into which they had piled their few belongings. The woman was settled on the top when they brought the clothes out of the shelter and two of the men lifted the bar at the front, starting forward with it slowly over the rough terrain. Take followed slowly, and trailed behind them. As the sun went down, he pulled the hood away, his silver hair rippling loose and free, catching the light. He moved a little faster when he scented something in the forest that smelled of fresh blood. He rushed around the edges of the group of humans, hurrying into the trees to find the source. What he found was a dead human, wearing a pale blue and white sort of jacket with a sword lying in his limp hand. He was not long dead, his blood was still pooling and he wasn’t stiffened yet, so Take seized the sword from the ground, gold eyes going to the surrounding trees, wary. He didn’t think the humans that had killed this one were going to just let the townspeople alone, so he retreated slowly, shoving the hilt of the sword at one of the men, his own hands curling as his nails lengthened slightly into short, sharp claws.

The old woman reached out to him, gesturing to the coat he wore, and Take stripped it off, handing it over to her. It was easier to move without the heavy item restraining him. Under the coat he wore an equally black shirt made of demon spider silk and hand-made demon leather pants and boots. The pants were tucked firmly into the boots, the belts around the legs of the boots pulled firmly, rising up almost to his knees with blackened buckles. The shirt was sleeveless; around his upper left bicep was a circlet of black, scribing an odd hatched pattern with a spiked diamond centred in the outside of the ring of black. He shifted to walk at the fore of the group, his gold eyes reflecting the light as he took in the forest, suspicious now that he’d found a freshly murdered human close to this group of unarmed humans. The men slowly circled the woman, pressing them in closer to the cart as they took up various tools in lieu of true weaponry.

The attack was sudden, and silent. Humans in strange costume leapt out at them, long narrow swords held in their hands, not at all like the broad curved scimitars he was used to from the desert, or the huge broadswords of the West.

However, humans were never a match for daemons or vampyr, and Take was a bit of both. He hissed, his fangs dropping long and dangerous from his mouth as he bared his teeth at them and leapt forward. He took the first human around the throat with a hand, heaving him off his feet and throwing him into a tree hard enough to shake the heavy trunk. The human didn’t get up again. The second one tried his sword, but he simply let it punch through him, pushing further onto the length of steel to claw the man’s throat open, a spray of blood arcing bright into the dark light, splattering against his face and hair. Around him, he could vaguely hear the men with blades attacking the men armed with mere tools, and he was sure some were falling to the more easily wielded swords, so he moved faster, claws black with blood in the dark as he began felling the attackers with clutching fingers and tearing teeth. At times his pale form shifted into thick curls of darkness, shadows crawling through the trees to wrap around throats, suffocating and crushing them. When it was over, he was a mess, blood dripping with thick plops from his claws to land in the leaf-littered dirt. His face and hair were coated with the thick copper-scented substance, making him almost ghoulish with the way his face was slightly contorted, his skin almost tightening to his skull so he was all gold eyes and fangs. He relaxed slowly, his fangs retracting slowly as he recognised that the threat was over and the townsfolk were staring at him in an almost fascinated sort of horror. He could hear them muttering to themselves, gathering in a tight knot, some of the men armed with the fallen men’s swords. He could hear one word repeating, and it took him a moment to find a way to translate it in his confusion.

Kyuuketsuki. Vampyr.

He sighed and shifted away from the swords aimed at him, only then thinking of pulling out the ones that were stuck in his flesh, bleeding thick black blood from the wounds. It didn’t rush like human blood, it oozed, like black tar, and where it touched the ground, it hissed, almost acid-like. He tossed the corroded blades to the ground, their metal worthless now, the blades eaten with his blood. Only the daemon leather of his pants didn’t burn away with the touch of his blood, the leather taken from other daemon’s flesh. Still the old woman perched on the cart was unafraid; she scolded those around her with impunity, shifting to hold his coat out to him, though she couldn’t rise from her seat. 

“Come, take your coat. Lead us on in this dark. You will not harm us.”

“How do you know?”

She laughed a surprisingly rich sound from someone so old.

“If you were going to eat us, you would not have saved me in the first place. You will be a fine guard as we walk to the next town for shelter.”

He hesitated, but stepped forward, the men parting slowly, suspicious even after her scolding. He was not surprised. He was a half-ling, half daemon that let him resist the late morning and early evening light, that let him meld his physical self into shadows and use them as extensions of himself. Yet he was still half vampyr that made him burn if he was exposed to that same daylight without a sufficient covering, that made him need blood not flesh for sustenance. He took the coat, the daemon leather lined with thick silver-tipped black velvet that formed a long heavy hood also. He nodded and when he took his place at the front again, the humans rallied behind him after salvaging what they could from their fallen comrades and the enemy, taking what swords they could for their own protection.

He moved in the dark as if it was daylight, following pointed directions towards the next town, but staying far enough from the roads to avoid more brigands like the last group that would try to prey on the delicate humans. It took another full day and most of the next night to reach the town, and he slept the day away in another woven shelter, curled under his coat tightly. He was starving, but over the years, he had developed a strict control over his hunger. He could wait until the townsfolk were no longer depending on him to leave and feed from someone else. In the next town, the refugees were welcomed after speaking with the men in charge of it. They were distributed throughout the town with others until homes and businesses could be rebuilt for them all. Take started to fade away, pulling his hood over his bright hair when the old woman gestured too him, her dark eyes bright as she said something he didn’t understand to the humans around her. He hesitated before reluctantly following her to a place that smelt, to him, of blood and death over laid with a heavy scent of antiseptic herbs. He lingered until he was gestured to impatiently by the woman as she was put into a room with a thin mattress of the floor, covered with blankets and a small, hard square pillow. The room was framed in wood, with paper on screens over the windows and a door made in a similar fashion. He settled into a corner closest to the interior of the building, away from the woman and the windows with their paltry protection.

“Why?”

He couldn’t think of a better question, at least, not that he knew he could say in this new language he was quickly learning. It was another daemon trait, a facility with new languages and technology. It came in very handy when one lived hundreds of human lifetimes, and needed to keep up with those changes.

The old woman shrugged, settled into the bed in a thin robe she seemed to be wearing to sleep in, another heavier robe spread over the top of the blankets. Her long silvery-grey hair was down from its bindings, rippling over her shoulders.

“Because you are good. Because you are helpful and strong, and I think even you need saving. Even the undead still have souls.”

“Undead? I am alive.”

He blinked and pressed a hand to his heart firmly, feeling it thump against his breastbone. 

“I am alive, the dead do not walk.”

She blinked and tilted her head.

“Then why do you appear as the undead? You are kyuuketsuki, the vampire, so you are not alive.”

“No. I am half-ling. I was born wrong.”

He went to her, leaving the heavy coat in the corner to let her feel his heart beat. He inhaled, letting her feel his lungs working. Breathing wasn’t the autonomous reflex for him that it was in humans and other mortal creatures. He could go without it if his life required it, such as sleeping in the desert under the sands, or swimming deep into seas and lakes.

“Then what are you? If you are not kyuuketsuki, the vampire, what are you called?”

“I am wrong. I am nothing. Daemon and vampyr both, an unhappy accident of my birth. I am not welcome among either people.”

“Why not?”

“Because this should not be. I do not deserve to live. So I am alone, I am nothing.”

He shrugged and sat on the floor so she could lie down and rest. He would guard her during the night.

“Do you eat? I can ask for food?”

“No. I have the vampyrs hunger, I will provide for myself. Your food would not be well in me.”

She nodded and closed her eyes.

“You are good. Evil would not have saved an old woman from the fire. Evil would have left us all to die at the hands of the Shinsengumi.”

“Shinsengumi?”

“Samurai that are fighting the shogunate. They attacked our town; we supply the armies with fine metals for their swords and armours. They think we are under control, they think we should be free from the Emperor. I think we should choose for ourselves if we are enslaved or not. I am not enslaved. If I did not want this life, I would choose another alone. I would not care about this battle.”

He didn’t understand some of her words, but he understood the sentiment expressed in them. Speaking to the old woman would make learning this new language much easier, the more he was exposed the faster he would pick it up for himself.

“You make weapons?”

“No. I am old. I was property owner to many. I owned many buildings that housed forges and homes that are gone now. When this is over and I am well, I will go back. I will get my money and live quietly.”

He lifted a silver brow under thick silver hair that fell into his eyes.

“You have a broken leg and many injuries. You won’t be able for the return trip for many weeks. How will you live until then?”

“I will provide service. I can still do many things. I was given education, I will share it. I will mend kimono, or watch children. I will manage.”

He shifted his hips on the hard flooring.

“I could get there much faster, and be back within a day.”

It was the best offer he could make. He wouldn’t steal her money, he could make his own, but he could repay her for her kindness by fetching for her. He didn’t understand kindness for its own sake yet. He would, later. However, not now, now kindness was a trade. It was given, so you gave something in return, and all he had was himself to give to the woman.

“It will keep. Do you have a name? I cannot keep calling you vampire, or nothing.”

“I am Take. It is all I know how to do, so it is who I am.”

“That is not a name for a person. I will think of something. You may call me Hayakashi-san.”

He nodded and offered her his hand, the way he would have in another place, before he remembered that the Eastern peoples did not shake, but bowed. He started to withdraw when her hand fastened on his. Her grip was hard and her skin firm, though wrinkled with age. He stared at her.

“This is your custom, so I will use it.”

He smiled slightly, his fangs only a hint in the sharpened points of his canines.

“I was born in the far West. Some things take a very long time to unlearn.”

“They do. I will tell you where to look for what I need, and you can bring it here to me. I will trust you.”

With her whispered instructions, he departed into the night, his personal travelling speed much faster than that of the humans he had escorted to the town. On his own he was a blur of black and silver, vanishing and reappearing between the deep shadows of the forest as he rushed in a half-form, his body not fully solid, nor fully shadow but something in between. When he reached the town, most of it was rubble, still smouldering in the dark of the morning, sickly grey shadows of smoke rising into the air.

Hayakashi-san’s house was hard to find, it was a pile of broken, burned beams and ash, a few scorched and heat-cracked stones littering the rubble. It was still hot, but he could deal with burns later. For now, he paced out the shape of it and tried to follow her directions to the place she had secreted her savings. It took him well into the morning to find it, the sun rising and spilling its painful rays over him as he drew his hood up and continued to search in the ashes. He finally found the metal box where it had been trapped under foundation stones, saved from burning or melting, but still hot. He hoped what was inside was still intact. He could not be out much longer. He tucked the box close to his chest and fled, finding a broken door leading into a sort of cellar to spend the day.

At the incoming of dusk he rose, ravenous after several days of not eating. He shoved the box into an interior pocket of his coat and fled along the road, slipping from shadow to shadow in search of a meal. Humans were not usually of much consequence to him, they were just food. The old woman was unique in his life, one he could not bring himself to use as food, but as more of a friend. He found several highwaymen on his way back to town, and fed on them, his fangs dropping long and hungry from his jaw, preventing him from closing his mouth all the way. His skin tightened, almost turning his face cadaverous, making him a frightening thing in the dark, all vicious teeth and claws and hunger. None of his victims survived, he left their bodies in the dust of the road, crumpled and bloodless. He never understood the mess some made of their meals; blood splashed everywhere and smeared on their skin and clothes. It was a waste of food. He fed cleanly, only the marks of his teeth and claws in his victim’s skins.

When he was full and no longer was craving food, his skin no longer pale, but a more flushed human tone, slightly on the yellow end of the spectrum instead of the fleshy pink of western skin-tones. He ran his tongue over his lips absently, their colour a fresh pink instead of bloodless white. 

He hurried back to the town he’d left Hayakashi-san in, rushing back to the clinic she was housed in. He appeared in her room as though he’d teleported in, standing in the doorway, the pale night streaming around him. She was sitting up, her leg bandaged much more cleanly, with a sort of hard cast around it now. She had a tray settled over her lap on short legs, eating quietly with a pair of those sticks the people of the East liked instead of Western silverware. His presence was unnoticed until he stepped on the flooring, his boots making it creak. She looked up, surprised at his presence before she put her food down and waved a hand at his shoes. 

“We don’t wear shoes on tatami, take them off.”

He wasn’t sure what ‘tatami’ were, but he knelt down to unfasten the series of buckles holding the boots to his legs and set them on the wooden floor outside the room, beside a pair of wooden sandals set there. He came back into the room, his thick socks making no noise as he settled down on the floor and dug the box from his coat, holding it out with both hands. She tapped the floor and he set it there, curling his hands into his lap to await her response. She merely returned to her dinner, rice and fish and some sort of pickled vegetable.

It took her another half an hour to finish eating, before the tray was set aside, and she pulled the chest into her lap, opening the latch on the box. Inside were dozens of various sized coins, some large and oblong, others small, joined on lengths of string like a necklace. Her hand drifted over the collection of coins, before she closed the box and tucked it under the edge of her blanket.

“Thank you.”


	3. Coming to a New Continent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take leaves Europe and Asia for North America.

Take stayed with Hayakashi-san for another five years, helping her and guarding her from the fighting that spread over the small island nation. When she came down with an illness, he cared for her, but she still wasted away, unable to get well again. When she died she left him her small fortune, and a property high in the mountains. She had eventually given him a name, or what she considered a proper name. If the neighbours did not quite grow to like him, they at least accepted his presence as Takashi Takeo. Upon her death, though, he left, closing up her small house in town and fleeing to the one she gave him on the mountainside. There he packed up the few belongings he had, and then he closed that house up as well, leaving it behind.

He fled back to the mainland, crossing northward this time, into the bitter cold and long dark days. In the tundra of the far north the daylight only lasted a few brief hours, and the light was weak and frequently dull grey, so his hood and a pair of supple leather gloves were enough to protect him and he crossed the continent back to the west. The rules had changed, sprawling cities had sprung up, armies no longer fought with huge swords or bows, and he found he missed the simple, beautiful aesthetic of the East. Perhaps they were right to close themselves away from this.

He crossed the small sea between the continent and the British Isles, and took up residence there, in an old home of his, returning to his former profession with a host of new skills learned in the East. He was practically a ghost in the night, and it made stealing from those who denied him easier and yet more fun because there was less evidence to his presence, further confusing and confounding their search for the thief.

When the continents to the west began to open up, Take found himself curious, and so he hid himself in a cargo hold in a ship. He found his first landing not so hospitable. The jungles were hot and wet and the sun fierce in this strange, sparsely inhabited land. He trekked northward on foot, finding small pockets of humans here, that were woefully unprepared for their new foreign visitors. He took his sustenance for them with little remorse, he was saving them from the persecution he knew would begin to rain down on them when the Europeans found them. Humans were not the most tolerant of creatures, they destroyed anything new, or different as if it were a disease to be eradicated. The more they thought themselves educated, the more they believed that they knew better than other humans, the more they thought their way was the best and should be the only way. You conformed or you died.

He didn’t agree, but then again, he didn’t live in the human world.

Getting north turned out to be more difficult, the southern land was wide, but very odd, and he trekked through it on foot for years before finding the path north again. The north had small pockets of the south, but the further up he went it changed, the tall trees with their froth of leaves at the tops giving way to trees that leafed out in huge rounded shapes and tall spires of sharp needles. It was cooler, the nights longer, the days less bright. He dug himself into a hillside, finding a place in the middle of the country where he could be left to his own devices for a while.


	4. The Catboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time passes and Take meets a catboy he's not sure what to do with.

A while turned into several hundred years, until the calendar turned almost another millennium. He walked down a street in the darkness, wearing black as he liked to do. People were freer now, more open about their bodies and their sexuality. He appreciated that. He also appreciated that it made hunting easier, because they didn’t believe in the supernatural world any more. Well, except for small pockets of places. Like the place he lived.

He lived far from the edge of a city, in a sprawling house populated by a pair of strange human girls. They were young, compared to him, but they believed. They had accidentally caved his home in, and so in apology they offered him a room in the wing built for the older girl. She gave him a room, with only a small window that she had painted black and covered with heavy light-blocking drapes. She seemed to find his appearance fascinating. He found it quite comfortable, despite the confusing ways of these two human females.

For now, though, he was hungry, and hunting for food. The lack of sexual repression made finding food he liked much easier. He strode through the dark hunting actively for food. The first thing he found appropriate only took him aback for a moment before his teeth were a sharp, brief flash in the dark. Strolling towards him in a red and black striped shirt with a low v-neck and a pair of high, tight jean shorts was a catboy. He was cute, and he was exposed to the night, and he smelled so very sweet.

Take had only met a tiny handful of humans that had been kind, and he didn’t quite understand it, so he attempted to repay them by doing things for them. But on the whole, he found the race an annoyance and only a source of nourishment. So he didn’t have any qualms about shifting into the shadows, letting it absorb him until he could utilize them. He used them to surround the catboy, reforming in the darkness behind him.

His nails curved into claws and his teeth were bared when he caught him, dragging him away from the road and into the deeper shadow of a tree. The catboy struggled briefly but he tightened his grip around his throat and growled behind him.

“If you struggle, I’ll snap your neck, and drain your corpse while you’re still warm. I will leave you draped over the doorstep of a police station, without ever revealing myself. You will just be mysteriously exsanguinated and left behind.”

Black cat ears lowered and the voice was high and yet not entirely feminine, which he could scent. The tail lashed uneasily, but he spoke calmly.

“I would rather you didn’t. I won’t run, so please don’t kill me.”

“I make no promises. But if I do it won’t be painful if you cooperate.”

The other nodded slightly, as much as he could while being held so tightly. The green eyes were brilliant, even in the dark. He could tell they were a vibrant shade of green. He bared his teeth and his own gold eyes flashed.

“Just be quiet and don’t move and maybe I won’t have to leave your corpse somewhere.”

He opened his mouth, his fangs descending completely before he sank them into his neck with a vicious plunge. He could feel him trembling in his grip, but he didn’t release him. He considered him somewhat brave, he hadn’t shrieked or fought back much, despite the terror that was obviously flooding him from the tang of adrenaline in his blood. Adrenaline tasted like a battery to the tongue felt. When he felt him start to give from blood loss he disengaged and let him wilt to the ground. He didn’t bother helping him.

He stared down at the catboy, ignoring the streaked eye make-up and the hand clasped to his throat to stem the leak of blood. He could feel the warmth flooding into his veins and he enjoyed it, knowing that the feline at his feet was seeing his skin flush and his colour rise. His skin relaxed from its feeding tightness, and he stared down at him eyes gleaming in the dark.

“You’re still alive. Be thankful.”

He stepped back into the dark until he was a mere golden shine of eyes and then he was gone. He didn’t see the tears smearing more of the black eyeliner, both frightened and angry as the catboy sat under the tree and collected himself before rising and hurrying off into the night. He simply slipped away into the dark, headed to his home. He felt well-fed, and he had a sizzling rush of energy in his veins. He hadn’t felt that rush in a long time. He ran his tongue at the corner of his mouth briefly just to be sure he didn’t miss anything before he found himself in the wide yard that surrounded the strange, sprawling home that he lived in.

The trees of the place were a thick forest between the wide span of grass that let them see anyone approaching from any direction, and the city that they lived near. The wide drive was crushed rock, but it curved off into the trees, leading out to a main road. There was a lake in one direction in the forest, and a smaller pond with a short waterfall feeding into it in another. It was a nice, quiet, peaceful place, despite the two loud, excitable human girls who made their homes there.

He stepped onto the porch and opened the kitchen door, having come to the back rather than the front of the place. The light was on for him and he stepped into the dim kitchen, only a light over the stove on. He flipped the porch light off and locked the door before wandering out through the enormous cavern of the living room and into the hall leading into one half of the house where his room was. He pushed open the door and stepped into the dark. The room was painted black, with black curtains over the painted out window. All his furniture was blackened metal or very dark cherry. He took his coat off and flung it over the desk chair, sinking down on his bed with the same motion to start unfastening the lines of buckles on his boots.

He kicked his boots off under the edge of the bed, the worn black leather giving against the edge of the bed. He flopped back across the dark blankets there, his silver hair a pale spill in the dark while he stared up at the ceiling. In his mind he built the catboy's face back up, starting with the defiant bright green eyes. He built the pale, slender face, with its painted eyes and the fall of black hair into his face and his ears laid back in anger and surprise. He grinned, amused with his defiance. It had been a long time since his food had done much more than scream before breaking off into a wet gurgle when he tore their throat apart with his teeth after he ate. He supposed the defiance was why he’d left him alive in the first place.


	5. The Stalking of Prey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take can't stay away from the catboy for long.

He was stalking him. He wasn’t sure why he was stalking him, but he had followed the catboy for weeks now. He hadn’t attacked him since the last time, but he was following him, stalking him from the shadows. An amorphous form in the dark keeping everyone else from stalking him. He’d been feeding off the humans and half-humans that hassled him, or followed him with plans of hassling him. He wasn’t quite certain why. Although his new house-mate, a fallen angel that practically landed on him, was mocking him about his funny human obsession. He’d barked at him a few times, but Tanso just laughed and waved his fingers before almost skipping out the door to go to what he called ‘work’.  
He was hungry tonight, though, and the cat boy's flavour was unique. Even other catboys didn’t taste like that. So here he was. Hungry again. He slid from shadow to shadow behind him, watching him. He was wearing a pair of plaid shorts tonight, in school-girl red and black, with a wide black belt at his hips with small square studs in rainbow colours covering it. Up top he mocked the white shirt with a white fishnet shirt that went all the way to his wrists. The shirt had loops that hooked over his middle fingers, keeping the netting snug all the way down his arms. With all this he wore the requisite white knee socks and patent leather shoes. He was a little entertained by the way he was perverting the catholic school girl outfit.

Not that it was an accurate representation of one. He knew. He’d been around for the original catholic school girls.

But he did appreciate the look on him. So he followed him, when he stepped into a pool of shadow under a looming tree Take’s hands covered his mouth and throat, both clamping him backwards into Take’s own somewhat cool body. His voice rumbled in the other’s ear, low in his throat and chest.

“Don’t move. You remember the way it works, right.”

The catboy stiffened and then nodded as best he could. Take resisted a smirk in the dark. It wasn’t like the boy had eyes in the back of his head. He leaned down, sniffing at his neck briefly. He wrinkled his nose. The scent was probably too faint for normal senses, even enhanced feline ones, but for his half-ling senses it was far too strong. He lifted his head and rumbled in the dark, drawing him away from the street and behind the tree.

“You should avoid scent, it’s an annoying cover to a very attractive smell. And it’s not going to stop me.”

He smiled against his fluffy black hair, and rubbed his face along a fluffy ear before he leaned down and sank his teeth into his vein again, ignoring the bitter tang of the scent's chemicals being carried to his mouth by the flow of blood. The taste of the blood ended up overpowering it in the end, making him pleased to have chosen him again. He groaned against the throat caught in his teeth, and the catboy trapped in his arms shivered. He almost stopped eating for a moment, surprised by the reaction. He knew terrified tremors, and the taste of fear.

This was not fear and terror.

He couldn’t grin, it would cause a lot of leakage and he needed nourishment. But he could laugh, and he did. He couldn’t help it. The boy was getting aroused from his attack. He released him when he was full, closing his bite before he let him sag in his grip. The boy couldn’t quite take his weight on his legs and he started to drop so Take scooped him up. He held him bridal-style and smirked in the dark, a hint of fang showing. 

“That’s a much different reaction from the last time.”

The bright green eyes gave him a dirty look and he shoved an the immovable, nearly immortal chest. He Just stared at him, and then hefted him higher.

“Don’t squirm too much, I might drop you.”

“I want you to drop me,” he shot back. “I want to get away from you, I’m not here to be your midnight snack.”

Take arched a brow, hidden by the fall of his hair in his face. He grinned suddenly and lifted him higher to rumble in his ear.

“Then why do you like it so much?”

The boy’s skin flushed with blood, despite his recent loss to Take’s own warmed skin. His eyes glittered, and despite his embarrassment, he reached out and tried to punch him in the face. Take ducked the motion and grinned, shifting to let him have his feet on the ground again. The catboy immediately strained away from him, hissing at Take who just casually raised a brow and hissed back, with bigger fangs than the kitten had. He released him suddenly and let out a low laugh when he tumbled straight onto his face.

“I always imagined cats were graceful. So much for that theory.”

“Shut up!”

Take smirked in the dark and crouched down, pinning him with his gold-eyed stare in the dark.

“Don’t get comfortable, kitten. I’ll see you again.”


	6. My Housemate is a Fallen Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take's housemate, Tanso, teases him about his catboy.

Take lingered in the kitchen, the light over the stove the only one on as a concession to his sensitive eyes. His house-mate was home and was cooking, long waves of chestnut pinned up so that they hung to his knees instead of trailing the ground behind him. He knew the other had wings, but they were glamoured away, so it looked like a slender girl was cooking. Sadly, he’d seen said ‘lady’ naked. Tanso was no more female than Take was, despite his looks.

“I am not stalking him.”

“You are. You’re just DYING to get out of this kitchen and go stalk your human. You’re practically vibrating.”

A pair of glimmering silver eyes looked over the other’s shoulder and he grinned, lightly glossed lips curled mockingly.

“You LI~KE him~”

The sing-song taunt was give with a laugh before he turned away and flipped his steak, seasoning the fresh side with something in a bowl on the stove. A frilly black and red dress in a mock-up of Victorian style was covered with a similarly themed apron. Take had heard the style was called Lolita. It was weird living with a person who claimed to be perfectly happy with his body, but wore women’s clothing 24/7. Tanso called it drag. Take just called it weird. Like he was one to talk, really. Still, this was ridiculous.

“He’s FOOD. This is not Finding Nemo. He is food, not a friend.”

“Darling, besides me and the crazy girls, you don’t HAVE friends.”

“And this is why. You’re annoying.”

“You’re only annoyed because I’m right. You’re stalking some poor human boy, because you like him. And from the descriptions, he probably likes what you’re doing too him, which means he’s just a little freaky in the bedroom probably.”

Tanso smiled, and it was full of deceptive angelic sweetness as he brought a plate to the table, his steak and steamed vegetables on it. He sat across from the hybrid he teasingly called a vamon. He had declared half-ling and non-entity to be ridiculous and demeaning. He dug into his food with relish, watching him eat always astounded Take. He was a delicate-looking thing, all long hair and silver eyes and creamy skin, slim in figure and yet he ate like food was going out of fashion and he was coming off a weeks fasting.

“I am not stalking him. I’m home tonight, aren’t I?”

“You’re just trying to prove a point, I can see your claws in the table.”

Take discreetly tried to remove them, but ended up with a chunk of the table pulling free to hit the tile with a small click. He didn’t flush, but he pursed his lips and tried to look unphased. It was hard with Tanso’s knowing smirk in his face.

“So just go get him! Good grief, its not like I don’t absolutely know that you want to eat him. While your at it, get laid. Maybe you’ll finally RELAX. God knows you need a Valium or something, you’re always wound so tight I’m afraid your going to hump the couch.”

“Not afraid I’ll attack you?”

Tanso laughed at him.

“Not in the least. We’re not one another’s type. I’m too much woman for you. And while you look like my type at the surface, you’re just not. Good god, you could be my brother before you were ever my lover.”

“I’m not sure I’m pleased by you being my brother.”

“Just go. The human girl is going to be upset about her table. I’ll soothe her, she likes me.”

Take went.


	7. Making House Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take visits his catboy at home. He really likes playing with his food.

Taeso was the cat boy's name.

Take thumbed through a stack of mail in a dark basement room. The house above was decorated in the female human fashion, tables, doilies, flowers. This room was painted dark, the tiny windows mostly blacked out with paint, the lights dim and sparse. He liked it. He set the mail down and ran his hand over the shelves of books, opening doors and drawers as he went through his room. He wasn’t sure why he was interested in the other’s home, but he couldn’t stop himself following him, protecting him in the night. He had ambushed him several more times, taunting him after taking his blood, but he was starting to feel something… strange. He wasn’t used to feeling. He wasn’t a real person, a real anything, so he just generally assumed he had no ability to feel beyond violence and avarice. That he was following him was new in itself. He heard noise above him and stopped, tilting his head to listen. There was shouting, the human woman upstairs was yelling at his catboy.

He couldn’t hear clearly, but she seemed angry, and he was just putting up with it. Take bared his teeth, the urge to go take her head off and have it stuffed and mounted to hang on his wall and throw daggers at for target practice coming with surprising viciousness. He let the shadows take him, sinking into the darkness until he vanished, nothing but amorphous shadow lingering in corners and under furniture. There was a brief stab of light, the door at the top of the stairs opening before it shut with a bang and the clatter of shoes on the wooden steps came, long legs wrapped in black fabric coming first before lean hips with loops of silver chains dripping over them, a narrow waist and flat, almost concave stomach. Then his face, one side reddened. Take’s anger seethed in the dark places, almost roiling the shadows like snakes.

Taeso just turned and gave the door the finger, before he kicked the thick-soled boots off, bare feet whispering over the multitude of rugs on the floor as he walked before flinging himself onto his bed, the sheets still rumpled from where they had been flung aside when he woke. Take had spent a moment or two sitting there, surrounded by his smell. He focused, the darkness alert to the catboy as it growled into a pillow before going limp and letting its anger drain from the tense limbs. He rolled over, black hair catching the light from a lamp briefly. His tail flicked tiredly at the tip, just a small twitch as he breathed away the previous strain.

Take considered and then thought ‘fuck it.’ He curled a length of shadow up over the bed, following it with several more. His focus was harder this way, but he had years of practice. The first length clamped over the cat boy's mouth, smothering his sudden shriek. The rest wrapped around him, holding his limbs still before Take brought himself together in the corner, gold eyes glowing first before he appeared. He crossed the room in silence, looking down and the panicking catboy. He could smell fear. He brought a gloved finger to his lips in a silent shushing motion. The boy went still, eyes wide and in the dark they gleamed a little, a dark tropical forest green. Take slowly withdrew the initial length of shadow, watching it ribbon away and vanish into the dark.

“Problem?”

“You’re in my house!”

The boy had the presence of mind to whisper, though it was more like a low snarling hiss. Take just gave him a look and the boy shuddered before hissing again.

“Get your creepy tentacles off me! I hate tentacles.”

Take snerked a little, the boy had the strangest freaked out inflection when he said ‘tentacles’, but Take withdrew them slowly, when he was sure he wasn’t going anywhere. He leaned on the wall beside the head of the bed, watching him as the catboy sat up, reaching over to a lamp sitting on a side table. Take’s hand snapped out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

“No more lights. I don’t like lights. They hurt my eyes.”

“Good. Fucking freak. Why are you in my house? If my mother sees you here, she’s going to fucking flip.”

“She won’t see me. If you keep your voice down.”

His grip slowly lightened until he could just feel the pressure of his skin through the thin leather gloves he wore tonight.

“And I’m in your house because I was… Intrigued. I wanted to see it. I’ve been here for hours. You’re out very late tonight.”

The boy’s eyes widened slightly before the narrowed and he snapped at him. Quietly.

“So not only are you a stalker with some kind of weird vampire fetish, but you're a criminal, breaking into my house. How you got past my mother, I don’t even want to imagine.”

Take smirked. He’d come in the boy’s own windows, he’d never even crossed the human woman’s path. He didn’t plan on doing so, she sounded like an annoyance, he’d probably kill her just to make her shut up. He put that thought aside and focused on the kitten.

“I don’t plan on telling you either. I just came to visit.”

He tried not to laugh at the idea of ‘visiting’ like this. He was getting very tired of his house-mate's taunts about his ‘stalking’ habit. He didn’t have a stalking ‘habit’. He only followed Taeso around. Their new house-mate was starting to get tetchy about it. Honestly, where were these weirdo’s coming from that this girl found them and invited them home?

He shook his head mentally, and redirected his wandering thoughts to the catboy. Those green eyes were staring at him like he was a lunatic. He supposed the boy wasn’t far off. This was getting ridiculous, if he didn’t know better he’d have thought the boy put him under some sort of spell. Of course that would mean the boy wanted him here, which he obviously didn’t. Not that the half-ling cared much what he wanted. He wanted to be there, so the kitten would just have to suck it up. Take shifted away from the wall to sink down on the edge of the bed, watching him as the kitten watched him in return, shifting away marginally. There was plenty of room on the bed for him, but the catboy didn’t seem to be as interested in him. Oh well.

The bed whispered under him as he leaned in and hooked his hand around the back of the boy’s neck, drawing him back in. There would be no running away today. He watched him, and leaned forward, his cool breath ghosting across the kitten’s jaw as he dipped his head towards his throat. The catboy stiffened, fingers curling into the blankets around them tightly. He sniffed lightly, and was pleased that today there was no scent, or it had been long enough that the smell had been worn off. He smelled the sweet, warm scent of Taeso himself, no adornment required.

Obviously, from the stiff way the boy held himself, eyes scrunched shut, he expected a bite. Take didn’t quite smile, but there was something amused about his expression. He decided to… play, with his food. He lightly ran his tongue from Taeso’s shoulder up to his jaw, where he paused to nuzzle and then he shifted to another spot as he ran his lips back down. Under him the boy shuddered and there was a vibration from his throat that he refused to let out, lips pressed together in a tight line. His eyes were still shut, but not quite so tight and the fear-scent was long gone, replaced with another scent. He liked the way it tingled in his senses.

He observed as he continued to glide his lips over his skin, watching him grow slowly, and unwillingly, pliant. He lifted his head, gold eyes glowing in the dark as he let go of the catboy, watching as he practically melted backwards, flowing down to the bed until he was sprawled bonelessly on the surface. He lifted his lids and the green of his eyes was practically black as he drew a shaky breath.

“What the hell was that…?”

His voice was low, and it rasped as though holding back his voice had hurt him. Take rolled a shoulder slightly. Even he wasn’t quite sure what all that had been, but he had enjoyed it. He rarely enjoyed anything that didn’t involve stealing from daemons and vampyr. So he didn’t quite want to stop. He leaned further down, his long black coat spread like dark leather wings over them as his gloved hands pressed into the bed at either side of the boy’s head. He hovered over him, silent. Watching. He waited until the catboy made a noise in his throat and tilted his head back into the bed, dark hair like spilled ink against his pale skin, his black ears almost invisible in the shadows and the dark of his hair.

The noise was like a sort of signal to his brain. Before he knew what he was about he was covering the kitten’s mouth with his own, his fangs pricking the soft bottom lip briefly before he shifted the angle of the kiss. He swallowed the purr that vibrated the boy’s throat, one hand lifting from the bed to rest there, the leather-covered fingers feeling the sound. He hadn’t kissed anyone before. It just wasn’t something he did. He ate, and he either drained the body dry and dumped it, or drank what he needed and left the other behind, often unconscious but alive. Kissing was new, but it came too him easily enough.

At least until the catboy reached out, arms loosely curling around his shoulders. Then he jerked away and stared down at the boy who was looking up at him. Take jumped away from the catboy, his gold eyes shining in the dark. Overhead he could hear the boy's family moving around, and if he let himself he could hear their conversations. But he wasn't letting it happen, and he hissed vaguely at the wide green eyes staring at him. The boy was staring at him from a half-sitting position, a snug white t-shirt clinging to his narrow chest. There was some sort of demented looking cat figure on the front with jagged, crooked letters saying “We're All Mad Here” on it. He felt a little mad, truth be told, so he surged up in a flow of black and silver and white and lunged at him, teeth bared. The boy shrank back out of reflex and Take hissed at him, looming threateningly.

“I don't know what you're thinking and I don't care. This was nothing. You mean nothing to me, except as food.”

And then he took his shadow form, breaking apart in the darkness and slipping away like long black snakes, causing the catboy to let out a faintly horrified squeaking noise and fling his blankets over his head. Take left quickly, fleeing in shadow form until he reached the strange mansion he lived in. Inside the lights were on, the weird female humans kept vampire hours as much as he did. They weren't related, but they were close in age, and acted much the same, living together in this monstrosity of a house. They were curled up in one of the living rooms, both on their computers doing something. They had headphones on, but the one with the longest black hair only ever half-wore hers, preferring to keep a watch on the house-mates in case they did something interesting. So she looked up when he whisked in like a cold wind.

“Welcome home! Eat anything good tonight?”

Strange woman. He just bared his teeth at her, which made her giggle at him and wave him on. He went past, wondering what a vampire-daemon had to do to make one of them afraid, and slammed his door to his room. The darkness soothed him as he put his coat in the closet and sat on the side of his bed to removed the tall boots. What was it about that boy that kept him in his head like that? He hadn't been able to think of anything else for months, and tonight he had... He supposed that was what the fallen angel house-mate of his called a 'kiss'. He'd never kissed anyone, but the angel had, and he had tried to explain it after Take had threatened to bite off several important appendages when he offered a demonstration first.

He thought about going to talk to Tanso, but recently the angel had been having his own issues. He'd mentioned something about something he called a 'hanyo' hassling him, and then proceeded to explain the process a fallen angel could take to become a demon, and that the male pestering him was one of those transitioning types. He wasn't the companionable type himself, so confessing that he'd just had his first kiss, with his FOOD, was... Well... Embarrassing to say the least and mortifying at the most, so he just changed into his day-sleeping clothes and checked the blackout curtains over his painted out window before he climbed into bed. He pulled the curtains around all four sides, tying them securely shut and the pulled the heavy blanket up over his head to sleep the day away.


	8. Obsession Makes You Cranky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take has to put up with his fallen angel housemate's teasing.

“Seriously, you're obsessed.”

Take attempted not to snarl at his house-mate, the fallen angel was cooking again, his long curls pinned up loosely to dangle down his back in a series of silver combs chained together and dangling black gems into the chocolate brown locks. He wore a simpler shift than his normal clothes, a simple black dress that fell from two straps into a sweetheart neckline and then straight down to his knees. Take would never understand his infatuation with women's clothes. He really did mostly look like a very flat-chested female.

“I am not obsessed. You're avoiding your problems, don't thrust them onto me.”

The fallen angel hissed at him, but with no fangs it wasn't very threatening. Take just bared his teeth back at him and drummed his fingers absently on his laptop's case as he worked in the kitchen. He'd been up for about an hour, and he wasn't too thrilled that the other was pestering him now. He was looking into something he could steal, his avaricious nature demanded that he steal things, he was quite choosy though. He went for antiques that were powerful or treasures that meant a great deal to others, using them as bargaining tools for other things or later favours. He was currently on the trail of a necklace of twined dragons around a single stone of rainbow fire, something he was aware a greater fyre wyrm was looking for. He would find it first, and either keep it for later, or make a deal for it.

“I am not avoiding my problems. The hanyo can bugger off, I am not interested in Heaven's demands. And just because his big brother thinks I'm a slut doesn't mean I have to sleep with him either. Asshole. I'm a DANCER, not a slut. I perform, I never go totally nude.”

Take shrugged. Morals weren't his strong suit. He'd seen Tanso dance. He worked in a night club called The Doll House, all of the dancers were modelled on some sort of fairy tale princess or doll. He'd seen an Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and a Raggedy Anne, along with Tanso's China Doll. There were others, but he just didn't get it. The men who patronised the place all knew the dancers were men in women's garb, but still they got excited. He had dumped a few bills in one of the boxes along the edge of the stage and left quickly.

“But you're not going to distract me. You're obsessed with your dinner boy. I don't know why you don't just admit that you like him. He's afraid of you, but he still hasn't tried to kill you. He could have gotten a UV light by now and fried you like so much meat.”

“Your analogy is so very thrilling. Is that bacon you're frying?”

“Don't you snark at me. Its not my fault you're hungry and refuse to leave the house. You're afraid you'll just be back stalking your dinner boy again. And forget to eat again.”

Take wrinkled his nose. He didn't stalk him... Exactly. And he wasn't forgetting to eat. He just... Was loosing his taste for other blood. Which really wouldn't do, Taeso couldn't consistently sustain him, the human body just didn't produce enough blood for that. He hissed absently as he turned his focus back to his computer and his job.


	9. A Glimpse into the Life of the Catboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief look at Taeso's home life.

Taeso waited the first few weeks with an almost hyper awareness, checking behind each shadow and fencepost for the glowing gold eyes and pale face. Every leaf rustle and whisper of wind on his neck made him jump. When he finally relaxed, a month had passed, and he put it out of his mind, even as the mark on his throat faded. A second attack months later brought the awareness back, and he covered the punctures left behind with a leather band that buckled behind him, a D-ring riveted to the front, a small silver padlock and a pair of tiny keys dangling from it. He had freaked out a little to find the man in his room, and the whole tentacle thing made him shudder in revulsion. He had seen too much tentacle porn, they freaked him out hardcore.

But time was passing again and in a few days, he could probably stop wearing the collar necklace. He walked home in the early evening now, avoiding the dark, even though he usually liked the dark. He wasn't making much money now days because of it. He kicked a pile of leaves at the side of the walk, sending them up into the air, swirling around as he walked through them. He was wearing a skewed version of a suit, his skirt finished a few inches above his knees, the outer layer in black and white pinstripe, with a froth of underskirt in a playful blush pink. He wore a similarly pinstriped shirt, the collar and pocket on the front picked out with silver rivets and more at the cuffs. On the left sleeve was a white band with a skull around his upper arm.

His boots were tall, almost knee high and black, thick-soled and high heeled, lacing up the front, but with four D-rings on either side of the laces, black straps looping behind his calves from them. A long necklace swayed against his chest, the black wooden beads clicking on his mock-rosary, a small coffin shape where the two sides met in the middle that said SIN, and then more beads leading down to where a tiny amber medicine vial hung, a skull and crossbones melded to the front. A purse hung from the crook of his arm, black and white striped as well, with a large oval on the front that displayed a false black rose between pieces of plastic. He usually liked this outfit to work in, but he hadn't had many customers today, and his mind had wandered too much for even his own version of sanity.

When he was serving the customers he would be thinking of gold eyes in the dark hovering too close, of cool lips that took him to another place, and then he didn't have to pretend that he was thrilled to be doing what he was doing. He took a shuddery breath as he turned into his yard, his shoes thumping on the creaky boards of his front porch. The outside of the house was a little run down, but inside the main house was decorated to within an inch of its life. His mother was watching her evening shows, a glass close to hand. It probably wasn't her first drink of the evening. He tried to slip past.

“Where've you been? It's getting dark, you should have been home a long time ago. Your brother's waiting on you to make him dinner.”

“Yes Mother.”

He held the sigh in as he moved through to the kitchen and his own bedroom door, the one that led to the basement. He took his shoes off there, and changed into a snug pair of jeans that sat low on his hips and a black tank top that said ZERO FUCKS GIVEN. He slid into a pair of black chucks, and went back upstairs to cook for his little brother. He found him already sitting in the kitchen and smiled. This was the only part of his fucked up family that he liked. He ruffled the other's light hair and opened a cabinet.

“How was school?”


	10. Kidnapping!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take finally can't help it. He steals his catboy off to his lair.

It was later when he was laying in his room, the blacklights, red bulbs and some pure purple twinkle lights giving his room a dark glow, that he thought of the strange man again. He really was a freak, he had fangs, and crazy breaking and entering skills, and some sort of smoke bombs that looked like tentacles. But Taeso couldn't deny that when he was biting on him, he really was drawing blood and that it kind of... Felt good. Which made him just as much of a freak, honestly, that he liked being treated like that.

He'd considered for a while that getting a gun or something would be a good idea, but then he'd changed his mind. He didn't want to kill anyone, and he was just as likely to shoot himself as he was someone else, so he ditched that idea. Now he slept very lightly, always aware that he could come back again in the night. The man obviously knew where he lived, so at least he could protect his family if he kept him down here instead of letting him go upstairs.

Except that the air never moved, there was never a creak from the painted-out window that he was purposely forgetting to oil now, or a rattle of the cans falling from the hairspray he had stacked in the narrow ledge. There were no footsteps to alert him when the cold hand clamped over his mouth, and the liquid voice sounded in his ear.

“Not a sound.”

Taeso's green eyes flicked to the side, encountering the savage gold ones he saw in his head every time he blinked. He swallowed and gave a shallow nod, unable to move his head much, he was pinned under that hand, those eyes. He didn't even know his name... The hand eased off again and the lean black form lifted away slightly. He sat up, taking a thin breath and then letting it go as the other stepped away, what looked like a leather coat swirling around him like shadows as he wandered the basement room, inspecting things. A clutter of clothes tossed over some chairs in one corner, a tangle of jewellery on his dresser, winding silver and gold chains around bottles of nail polish and tubes and jars of make-up. He scooped up an item here and there, a bottle of black nail polish, a leather cuff with two rows of short spikes in the middle, flanked by a row of skulls and crossbones on either side. Anything he picked up vanished, as if he'd slipped it into a pocket of air, not his coat.

He worked his way around the room, coming back to the catboy, and Taeso thought briefly about the purple and black lava lamp on his table, but he didn't move. He almost knew without moving that if he hit him with it, he wouldn't hurt him. It would just make him angry. He stayed sitting where he was, watching.

“I am not obsessed with you.”

Taeso blinked at that, and he managed his voice for the first time.

“I never said you were?”

“Not you.”

He blinked. Not him? So, someone ELSE had accused him of being obsessed with him? Who? He found himself unaccountably annoyed. He couldn't imagine why, the other man didn't belong to him. He wouldn't date someone who was crazy after all. So why was he so annoyed that he'd discussed Taeso with someone else? Holy shit, was the guy married? Was his WIFE a lunatic too, that she calmly discussed and teased him about being obsessed with someone he had attacked? He tried to put the thought aside, but it wouldn't go.

“Not ME? Then who? Do you discuss everyone you harass with your girlfriend?”

“No one you know, and while he'd be pleased at being mistaken for a girl, he's not mine.”

He didn't sigh with relief, but it was a close thing. At least he wasn't married or anything, even if he was still a lunatic. The golden eyes were still looking around, rarely ever still except when they fixed on Taeso for long moments. He took a minute of silence, but silence had never really been his thing.

“So... Obsessed, huh?”

“I am NOT.”

He sounded exasperated, and while it wasn't angry, it still made him wary. Then the man lunged towards him and scooped him off the bed and over his shoulder. He held him pinned there, arms dangling past his head. Taeso held in a scream with more willpower than he'd thought he had. The man was heading for the still blocked window with firm strides.

“What are you DOING?! Let go of me, put me DOWN!”

He could help his voice, it was rising in panicked squeaks as he thrashed a bit, thumping the thick leather with his fists. This close up he could see that the coat was meticulously stitched out of several different pieces, and not all of the same texture. He was pretty sure he even felt scales pressing into his bare midriff where his tank top had slid upwards when he was tossed over the strong shoulder and his boxers were sliding down.

“No.”

And then there was a thick darkness, as if he'd stepped into a murky smoke, but it had no scent, no texture. Just a shifting blackness that wasn't up, down, sideways, slant-ways or any other ways he could think of.(1) It roiled around him like it was alive, and he couldn't feel the pressure of the shoulder under his stomach, or the arm around his thighs that had been there a moment ago. It was like he was flying and falling all at the same time. It was a little nauseating, truthfully. He hung there for long minutes before there was shocking return of sight and sound, the wind chilling his barely-protected skin as the hard shoulder was back, the arm firm again. He wasn't even in TOWN anymore!

All around a huge clearing were trees, with a wide white gravelled driveway curling into them and out of sight. In the middle of the huge cleared space was a house only a lunatic could think up. One half was almost over-grown, or so it seemed, a living wall of green, and the parts he could see sticking out in various directions were almost cybernetic looking. And mashed into it from the other side was a more traditional, but no less random mansion-like house. It was like two houses had simply expanded until they were growing into one another.

“Where-”

“Home. Shut up.”

The man simply walked up to a porch that spanned half the house and opened the door, leading into a kitchen. It was empty, with only a dim light over the stove illuminating it. The door clicked shut behind them and the crazy man walked out into a hallway. Down one side the hall continued into infinity, it seemed, but the walls looked... Weird. He imagined it was just painting illusion that made it look like growing trees. The other end of the hall was a huge arched doorway where there was light and sound, and voices. He wanted to scream but the arm across his legs tightened and a warning growl echoed briefly before the man turned down the endless hall.

He saw doors at intervals, some further apart than others, as if some were closets, or single rooms, and others were almost full apartments. They entered a door that was different from the rest, it was thicker, darker, and framed in metal. He opened it and stepped down a shallow series of stairs, into a windowless room. It was made of a dark grey stone, and looked hand-carved, a thick ring sunk into the stone with a short chain coiled around it.

He had a bad feeling about this.

He began struggling at last, not that he was getting anywhere with it, trying to use his hands and arms to push his way up the lean back. At least the multi-textured leather gave him some purchase as he tried to straighten, but a shift of the other's shoulders bumped him out of balance and he went back down with a fwump. Then the whole room gave a whirl as he was swung around and dumped onto the cold stone. He squeaked and started to scramble up, only to have a booted foot hooked around the back of his knees and his legs jerked out from under him. Taeso yelped loudly as he hit the ground, his head banging slightly into the stone, nearly making him bite his own tongue. Before he could get his wits back he heard a solid sounding snick and felt ice cold around his ankle.

He sat up finally and looked down in disbelief.

He was chained here.

He surged to his feet, his fur and hair all on end as he hissed and swiped at the tall man with his claws. His hands were simply batted aside.

“How DARE you! You can't just KIDNAP someone and chain them in your basement! There are LAWS!”

“Not here. And there's no one here to help you if you scream. If they even hear you. I know you'll waste your time and energy trying, but there's only a few beings living here, and none of them will gain a thing from helping you.”

He stared down a him, a mild frown marring his lips before he turned and walked up the stairs, boots scraping slightly on the stairs. There was a dull thud that was the closing of the door and Taeso found himself left to stand in the dark.

And the cold.

And the silence.

Well shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not condone any sort of kidnapping, so I know Take is doing it, but please don't think that I'm in favour. If anyone knows anything about a kidnapping I would strongly suggest reporting it. Just an FYI.
> 
> 1 – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory reference = get


End file.
